1. Technical Field
This invention relates in general to recorded media disc drives and in particular to a miniature disc drive for notebook computers.
2. Background Art
Compact disc (CD) and digital video disc (DVD) drives for laptop or notebook computers are well known in the art. As the demand for smaller and smaller portable computerized machines such as notebook computers has increased, the size of their disc drives has become an increasingly important criteria in their design and layout. Since the x, y and z-dimensions for the CD and DVD are standardized by the industry, the continuing reduction in the size of disc drives has a finite limit. Existing designs are based on the assumption that he entire disc must be located within the volume of the case of the machine when the disc is being used. Recently, efforts to reduce the size of disc drives have focused on reducing the dimension or thickness of the drives. An improved CD and/or DVD drive for portable machines is needed to free up additional interior volume inside the machines for other devices.
A notebook computer has a base with a pivotable display monitor. The base contains a disc drive for manipulating a disc, such as a CD or DVD. The disc drive has a manually-operated, rotating guard on a side edge of the base. Prior to the insertion of a disc, the guard is substantially retracted within the base. To load a disc into the disc drive, the guard is rotated about five degrees to a load/unload position and the disc is inserted into a slot. In the fully inserted position, approximately 1.5 to 2 inches of the disc will extend beyond the side edge of the base. The guard is rotated to its fully closed and locked position. Closing the guard causes the disc drive to engage and interface with the disc. The guard and the disc protrude from the side of the base during operation, but the disc is completely enclosed. The disc is removed by pushing an eject button and rotating the guard to its original position.